Breakfast In The Temple : Book Cover Art

March 23, 2013
Old Tower In the Fields by Vincent van Gogh, 1884

Old Tower In the Fields by Vincent van Gogh, 1884

“Breakfast In The Temple” is a “How to Book” on Christian Meditation. If you are a site subscriber or happen upon this website, could you please choose from these two covers or choose the third option, “neither”!  Thank you, I  truly appreciate it.Breakfast in the Temple Covers

The cover art is from a 1884 oil painting on canvas by Vincent van Gogh.

Van Gogh’s work (especially from the year 1890)  is heavily featured in Breakfast in The Temple.

The cover painting is  from van Gogh’s  “softer” period when he was living in Nuenen, the Netherlands.  The subject, the tower-church,  was a favorite subject  of van Gogh’s when he was living in Nuenen (1883-1885).  He painted or sketched the tower often from different perspectives with a variety of detail.

The “yellow” cover has been enchanced.The orange cover is a copy of the original artwork.

There are those who believe that the yellow cover is more optimistic i.e. “sunnier”. They also believe it is more graphically gripping. Black and yellow combined carries a certain visual alchemy.

On the other hand, the original orange is the way van Gogh had conceived it; others also say that the orange cover carries more mystery.

The “Breakfast In The Temple” cover will be both for the e-book and the hard copy of the book. Of course, my interest is to create a cover that will be pleasing to a potential reader: one that will be arresting as a thumbprint on Amazon as well as a cover  in a book store.The digital files  for an e-book are easy to change. The hard copy editions are a bit more complicated and involve a series of proofs. Obviously, the best thing is to go with a”permanent version” that will not need to be changed in the short-term.

In any event, this is a first for me. Again, thank you for your help and I will be blogging about the maker culture process and progress here over the next weeks.

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4 responses to Breakfast In The Temple : Book Cover Art

  1. Congratulations, big step!
    The black title/text pops more, so if you plan any printed-for-shelf-space, that’s the stronger (pay great attention to the spine, too, as it is what most will see of the book first.)
    This may be the fault of my screen, but I’d suggest dialing down the green in the yellow, it feels a little too close to chartruse, a bit colder than the greatest yellow. You want the warm bright yellow of sunrise to evoke breakfast time, renewal, clarity of daylight…
    In further support of the black/yellow cover, it’s not a book on Van Goch, right? Don’t cleave to his original intention; he may have hoped that it would be revised to a golden yellow if a selection were ever used for an ebook cover! 🙂
    Big step, very cool, rock on.

    • Wow! Thanks Girl Pie. I appreciate your artistic insights….and your thoughts about van Gogh. He was a remarkable mind….his 900 letters available on-line are eye-opening! Rock on, Girl Pie, and thanks again for your encouragement!:-)

  2. I love the orange image but am not crazy about the lettering. Maybe another color? Blue?

    • Thanks, Martha….I am going to try blue….my niece tells me it is at the other end of the color spectrum than orange….therefore pleasing….